Transmontana’s Grandmothers open the doors to share memories and knowledge

“Viva @ vó” project aims to create a new tourism product for the villages of the district of Bragança. Maria da Graça Afonso, 76, a former primary teacher, natural and resident in Agrochão, in the municipality of Vinhais, and is one of the grandparents of the “Viva @ Vó” project of the Superior School of Communication, Administration and Tourism of Mirandela (EsACT). Polytechnic Institute of Bragança.

He entered this adventure for the love of the land and considered it “very important to raise the heritage, especially immaterial, so that nothing is lost and remain as a living treasure for the young.”

Maria da Graça receives the Renaissance dressed in precept, like a woman from the Transmontana countryside, where the typical scarf on her head does not lack. He has before him his ‘relic’: more than 300 A4 pages with recipes, legends, songs and stories that he has been collecting and updating.

When Maria da Graça was approached to integrate the project, she thought it was to share “the culinary recipes” that she collected over time, but then realized that it was “something much bigger” and was “attracting tourists to the land” and share memories and traditions. ”

“I embraced the project with great joy because what I want most is that nothing is lost from what my ancestors, habits and customs left me,” he tells the Renascença.